In addition to providing a comprehensive road map for America's long-term strategic intent, the National Security Strategy (NSS) released by the Biden administration in mid-October is also a reflection of the changing thinking patterns at the White House at the moment.

The national security priorities, largely echoing those of the past administrations, are the most interesting part of this 48-page document. The salient feature of this document is that, while borrowing snippets from previous administrations’ successive strategic outlooks, it diverges from them when it comes to the philosophical thrust that revolves around modern industrial and innovation strategy – along with the utilization of industrial and economic tools – to muffle the challenges emanating from China and Russia. The NSS has actually allocated a hefty amount of space in its pages to both China and Russia as the most serious threats to the strategic interests of the United States.

Over the last few years, for obvious reasons, China has gradually eclipsed Russia as the main challenger to the U.S. in the global arena. The same is reflected in the NSS document where Russia has been relegated to the second position as a "specific threat" to American interests while China has been upgraded to its top competitor. Very interestingly, unlike the multipronged description of the China threat, the NSS has knitted its narrative about Russia around the Ukraine invasion. Even a cursory glance at the content of the NSS would reveal that the whole drive of the White House strategy is linked to the Ukraine invasion. The NSS, being a strategic document, was expected to contain a long-term vision of U.S.-Russia relations, but it seems that the American policymakers are far too obsessed with the acute issue of Ukraine rather than other chronic problems like controlling nuclear proliferation and reaching a new arrangement beyond New START.

Recency effect of ongoing war

The recency effect of the invasion of Ukraine is the most dominant aspect of the Russia chapter in the NSS. It is not surprising at all. American policymakers have always tried to use acute issues to maneuver the global political scenario to their advantage.

Elaborating on the American position vis-a-vis Russia, the NSS stated: "Russia now poses an immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability. This is not about a struggle between the West and Russia ... We are constraining Russia’s strategic economic sectors, including defense and aerospace, and we will continue to counter Russia’s attempts to weaken and destabilize sovereign nations and undermine multilateral institutions." The NSS has laid down a five-point action plan to counter Moscow. As expected, this action plan guarantees full-fledged support to Kyiv and serious retaliatory steps against Russian belligerence. It is very clear that the U.S. is encouraging the integration of Ukraine into the European Union – as well as NATO. The phrasing used in the NSS is reflective of this thinking.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has grudgingly accepted the inclusion of Finland and Sweden into the folds of NATO, but any attempt to further expand NATO to the borders of Russia through Ukraine may provoke Putin to resort to extreme steps, including using nuclear weapons. The NSS also mentioned the same apprehensions but in a different way. There is overconfidence in the American camp that the Ukraine invasion will eventually drain Russia's military power, which may push Putin to think about nuclear weapons to avert further humiliation in Ukraine. At the same time, the NSS has vowed to defend "every inch of NATO territory" in the event of any such assault from Moscow.

Throughout the chapter on Russia, an extremely belligerent tone is quite palpable: "The U.S. will deter and, as necessary, respond to Russian actions that threaten core U.S. interests, including Russian attacks on our infrastructure and our democracy."

Overconfidence and arrogance are blatantly visible in the script of the NSS. The excerpt, "Russia’s conventional military will have been weakened, which will likely increase Moscow’s reliance on nuclear weapons in its military planning," is certainly a very supercilious sentence that shows the brewing aggression in the White House and Pentagon. The Ukraine invasion has provided an ideal opportunity for the White House to put pressure on and isolate Moscow, and at the same time, to exploit the vulnerability of the European capitals. The U.S. is now trying to wage two parallel semi-cold wars with China and Russia simultaneously. In both cases, the Americans are using their European allies as tools to propagate American interests across the globe.

Back to the Cold War?

A deeply divided EU, in the absence of any tangible leadership from the continent, is confused about its role in the emerging rivalry between Washington and Moscow. The Ukraine invasion has provided an opportunity for the U.S. to revive NATO and to reestablish a Cold War-styled security structure in Europe. It has enabled the U.S. to increase its military presence on the European continent on the pretext of NATO expansion due to the emerging threats from Russia.

The swift manner in which U.S. President Joe Biden lobbied for Finland and Sweden despite resistance from other key NATO members, particularly Türkiye, surprised all the stakeholders, including Putin, who was dumbstruck at the unexpected expansion of the alliance. The selfish approach of Washington, which is becoming clearer to the Europeans after the Inflation Reduction Act that is supporting American companies with billions of dollars in subsidies to outcompete their European counterparts, has perturbed the EU leadership, who more and more feel that they were tricked in the name of the Ukraine crisis.

So far, the U.S. has been profiteering from the Ukraine war in many different ways while Europe as a whole is suffering from multiple problems like the cost-of-living crisis, skyrocketing inflation and the persistent fear of the Ukraine war metastasizing to other parts of the continent. The main complaint of the European leaders is that President Biden has been dictating to the EU to push the American agenda without consulting them in advance. The existing disarray in the top tiers of the EU is further encouraging Biden to call shots as per his whims.

By undermining the principles of fair and free trade through unjustified subsidies to American companies, Biden has indirectly provoked his European allies to start looking toward China to tone up their respective economic and business muscles.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Beijing last month was a lucid example of this rumbling mutiny among the European leaders against Washington’s unnecessary bullying approach. The NSS is literally Ukraine-centric when it comes to the topic of Russia. This is a deliberate attempt by Biden and his team to inflate the Ukraine crisis to boost its presence across the Atlantic and resuscitate the moribund NATO, which has been losing credibility in the last few years. There is no denying that the Ukraine invasion is a blatant expression of aggression by Putin and it poses a serious threat to the peace and stability of the European continent. By continuously talking about nuclear weapons, Putin has raised the specter of nuclear war.

However, the Americans’ dichotomy is quite visible in the NSS: On the one hand, the Americans have put too much emphasis on the seriousness of threats to global and European security due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but at the same time, they are snobbishly projecting that Russia’s conventional army is a weak and ill-disciplined force that will soon be paralyzed in Ukraine, which could prompt Putin to consider using nuclear weapons to turn the tide against the Ukrainian military.

Both assumptions are quite contradictory. Biden and his team, knowing very well that Putin’s limitations have been exposed by his misadventure in Ukraine, are looking for ways to use the Ukraine crisis to their advantage, which is why we see a lot of talk about Ukraine in the NSS. Russia, unlike China, does not have the economic clout and infrastructure to disrupt the global supply chain. The energy card is the only differential advantage in Putin's hand at the moment as the myth about Russia’s military might has been effectively busted in Ukraine. By venturing into the Ukrainian territories, Putin has provided an opportunity for Biden to redesign the American strategic outlook toward Europe and expand the role of NATO more aggressively across the globe.